ERICKSEN: [Philips clears her throat] This is an interview with Martha Henrietta Philips by Paul Ericksen for the Missionary Sources Collection of Wheaton College. This interview took place at the offices of the Billy Graham Archives in Wheaton, Illinois, on September 26, 1985, at 1:30 pm. Well, when we finished our last interview we were still talking about your time in Weihsien.

PHILIPS: Uh-hmm.

ERICKSEN: And we talked a little bit...you...you talked about how the children or the students weren't getting along and how Eric Liddell helped with some of that. How did the adults get along?

PHILIPS: Back to the students. That was not necessarily our students. There were many students that ...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

PHILIPS: ...didn't have...didn't have any Christian background at all and so that was were the difficulty was. And some of the adults got along well and some didn't. And adults can sometimes get over it a little bit better. But there were disharmonies. There were problems and when you're under stress unless the Lord undertakes it can be very difficult.

ERICKSEN: Yeah.

PHILIPS: We didn't happen to get involved in that sort of thing...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

PHILIPS: ...but we saw a good many things.

ERICKSEN: Were there incidents where CIM [China Inland Mission] missionaries were able to mediate in problems?

PHILIPS: Well, now I have to qualify this. I was only there about three weeks...

ERICKSEN: Right.

PHILIPS: ...and I was looking after this miniature hospital and so I didn't see any of those, sometimes you know, just disharmonies. People can, but I don't know.

ERICKSEN: What was involved in this hospital, the miniature hospital you referred to?

PHILIPS: Well, I have this child with the mumps and another one that hadn't yet had it and they didn't want to expose everybody and I had a child with hepatitis and that was all. There was no... they...the hospital at Weihsien had completely dis...been dismantled. But gradually they got beds put in, different things doc...there were doctors there but they didn't have their instruments, they didn't have their medicines and yet they took care of people. Of course we left before there was much of that. But there was a great deal of that and even Eric Liddell died in the hospital there so....

ERICKSEN: How did the Japanese treat you there?

PHILIPS: Again, we were there such a short time. We had no problems. I had no problems with them at all.

ERICKSEN: What about, let's say, the other people that had been there longer? Did you hear them talking about their treatment, either favorably...?

PHILIPS: I don't recall hearing anything of it. Of course, people are not naturally in love with their captors.

ERICKSEN: Right.

PHILIPS: But there was...I didn't hear anything of...of harsh treatment. I don't know.

ERICKSEN: Okay. Before we started running the tape you mentioned that you'd recalled the names of the folks who ran the Vancouver home.

PHILIPS: Carolyn and Ford Canfield. Those were the ones that helped with the teaching. The others [coughs]...the others I have not yet thought of. The one who's husband was Walker so-and-so.

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh. [laughs] Well, I think we've pretty much covered all the...the topics related to your internment. Anything you'd like to add that.... One other thing you did mention was where funding came from to provide for food...

PHILIPS: That...

ERICKSEN: ...for the children.

PHILIPS: ...that was an interesting story. [clears throat] You see the war started on the seventh of Jul...seventh of December out there or eighth of December there, seventh here, because of International Date Line. We had had the check to cover holiday expenses to feed those children. That had been taken to the Japanese controlled bank on Saturday. All banks had been Japanese controlled from '38 on. There were no other banks. [clears throat?] At the bank they had said, due to some technicality, "We won't give you the money today. Come again on Monday and you may have it." They knew. [laughs] They knew with diabolical accuracy when those first shots would be fired. If they'd kept that check till Monday it would be theirs. And so it was not one penny forthcoming to feed those children. And every bank account was confiscated. Everything in the bank now was Japanese. Well, of course, you say, "What would you do in a case like that?" There's only one thing to do is to talk to the Lord about it. But you know it was a good thing we could say, "Lord they're your children. We're just looking after them for You. What are You going to do about it?" It wasn't really shoving the responsibility but that's were it was. Well, of course, I think people understand that missionaries have servants. When you think of all the servants people have here, electrical appliances and all.... We dismissed some of the servants. It took a good many to meet the needs of those children. And we put...we took on jobs we hadn't had and the boys and girls began learning things not in textbooks. And then we put ourselves on strict rations, the strictest we felt we dared because we had to keep the children in health. Each child knew, for instance, practically how many slices of bread he had coming per day. If he overate at breakfast he was hungry by evening so they learned their arithmetic quickly and accurately. Nobody ever subtracted incorrectly more than once. And then we counted our pennies, money that was in hand. If there had...there isn't much in hand on the mission field. If there had been it would have been put in the bank for safety and the Japanese would have had it. So it was just the money we had in hand. And we found that by being very careful using these rations and all we could feed the children for three months. But nobody could help us so far as we could see at the end of three months. That was it. Well, of course, we knew we had the Lord. We told the children...you know what a strength it is to get a definite answer to a definite prayer and we knew it would be that for the children. We told them and day after day they prayed even as we did that the Lord would supply the needs. One day before the three months were up our secretary was sitting in his office working and a Chinese businessman came in so disturbed. He said, "I am in a place of great difficulty. Here is a rather large sum of money. I must get to this other city immediately. The Japanese won't let it out of Chefoo. Can you help me?" He knew nothing of our needs. His own needs: pay your bills or loose your business and he had to keep his family fed. Well, we'd been cut off from the rest of the pearl...world from the day of Pearl Harbor, no mail coming or going. But our secretary sent a message, you know, sort of over the back fence, and it was relayed and relayed till it got to mission headquarters away in free China. The money in the treasury for us but they couldn't send it to us. The Japanese would get it. So they took our money and paid this man's bill and we had the money the Japanese wouldn't let out of Chefoo and wouldn't let it in either. So we told the children about it that night. They held a praise service thanking God for turning in...for...for sending in the money. I think I told you earlier about the men that had been taken captive. Did I tell you about this eleven year old girl who prayed came and rejoicing?

ERICKSEN: Yeah. You mentioned her but you...and you referred...

PHILIPS: I hadn't...

ERICKSEN: ... to the men but you really didn't go into that in any detail.

PHILIPS: Yeah. Well, there was the...the money had come in. Of course, I did tell you about the men being released and the money. But every time we'd get a little bit short, we never got to the pottom...per...[unclear]...to the place where we could see the bottom of the barrel. Never. But every time we'd run a little bit short another man would come with the same request. Our secretary told me he didn't think the same man every came twice. We never knew it. Of course, that was a protection for him. You never know if you get caught. You don't know what you're going to reveal under torture. We were never caught but the Lord supplied all of our needs as long as we were on that compound. Of course, when we got over to Temple Hill, then the Japanese government began to allow so much a day. And they said to us, "You'd better be careful with that. We're not going to give you any more money on...in the winter time when you'll need it for fuel. You better save a much as you can." And we did, saving all we could for the winter and then before winter came they transferred us to Weihsien and they put in their pockets what we had saved. Those things...you know, human beings are what we are dealing with. But it was...we didn't...we didn't suffer in eating those things. We didn't get what we ordered often but we...we were grateful for what we got. And it wasn't always good. We did the best we could with it but the Lord undertook. Up to this time did I tell you our children hadn't grumbled?

ERICKSEN: No.

PHILIPS: And they began to grumble. We'd been praying for revival you know and every time we prayed for revival the Lord shut [hits fist against hand] us up a little bit tighter, a little bit tighter. And finally when we got to the point we couldn't do anything He was right there. Sure we had revival. Our grumble was this. The children said, "We haven't anybody else we can help." Having their own daily devotions just as soon as they got something fresh from the Lord, off they'd go and share it here. So everyone in our (see, I told you there were three camps there)... everyone in this camp....

ERICKSEN: This is at Temple Hill?

PHILIPS: Yes. Everyone in this camp had had a fresh touch from the Lord. We'd have revival all right. I think that was a grumble that was pleasing to the ears of Lord. And so He picked...oh, He used Japanese hands to do it. He picked us up from here and moved us out to the Weihsien Camp and I told you about going there.

ERICKSEN: Uh-hmm. Now you said that when you left Weihsien you took twenty-five students with you.

PHILIPS: Yes. Twenty-five of...of our CIM students.

ERICKSEN: They were all Chefoo students?

PHILIPS: That's right.

ERICKSEN: Were there...how many adults were there?

PHILIPS: [pauses] I suppose fifteen, twenty, or more. They weren't just school. They were members of the mission or American citizens.

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh. So twenty-five all together?

PHILIPS: No, no. Twenty-five children.

ERICKSEN: Okay.

PHILIPS: When we go to...to Rio de Janeiro, that was another surprise. We being just a China group wouldn't have anybody in Latin America and the denominational missions folks were saying, "Their people were coming to meet them from this country and that one." We decided we'd have a good time by ourselves. We'd see what we should and every...as we were getting in there, (I can't remember the name of it) but we were all out peering into a dense bank of fog, and up on the top of one of those mountains (it's not Sugar Loaf but another one) there was a statue of the living Christ with arms outstretched, the sun shining on it. [Christ the Redeemer statue atop Corcovado Mountain] Just a hush fell over that godless crowd. In a moment the clouds drifted together and we went on in. Then we went down to have lunch before we got off the boat. And there in front of my plate was a note. "Dear Miss Philips, I'm an old Chefoo boy. My wife and I are here in Rio. We'd like to entertain the Chefoo people while they're here." And here they were, this boy who had graduated from the school, he and his wife and two little boys. And they took us everywhere. We felt all the sights; we couldn't see them [because of the fog]. But the next day it was a beautiful day and we could see it as we were leaving. But that night they had all of us out to their house for dinner. She'd inquired of him what the Chefoo kids liked and, of course, as I told you before, peanut butter was one of the things. But we had quite a...an elastic type of meal but there was forty of us that night. Now that tells you something of what...I don't know whether that included all the CIM that were there but there were forty of us at the house and twenty-five of them were the children.

ERICKSEN: Can you describe your...the process of repatriation that you went through?

PHILIPS: [laughs] Yes, I can. On the way...well, see we [pauses]...after we got onto the Gripsholm we hadn't mentioned that yet.

ERICKSEN: No.

PHILIPS: The Gripsholm came out to meet us at Goa [on the western coast of India]. Yes, we get onto the prison ship. Did I tell you the sh... sh... size accommodation we had? Each of us had a straw tick [mattress] six feet long and aimed at twenty-four inches wide. Their aim was poor. Anywhere from fifteen to twenty-four jammed together [claps hands] side by side as close as they could get them, thirty-five in a row. And just to make it interesting my number was eighteen, I had seventeen people on either side of me. Just...you couldn't move without disturbing somebody. There was another...a shelf above us about like a double deck, not quite as high as a double deck. But you had to get back and slither in to get in there. Thirty-five above us thirty-five above or thirty-five with their heads next to ours, thirty-five above them, at their feet and our feet. Aisles just wide enough to walk through and there were two hundred forty of us in that one enclosed deck space. It was...it was rugged and we...yes, we were on....

ERICKSEN: How much space did you have up above you before the next shelf?

PHILIPS: Well, I was on the lower deck so I got just the...the next shelf. I don't know what there was up there. I...I think it was from there on up to the ceiling. It might have been...it might have been forty inches. That's just a guess. But ours was...was a small space so they didn't have to climb too far to get up. But it was...it was quite an experience. And on that ship, well, water was insufficient. It was difficult keeping the kids clean. Conditions were really indescribable. But they had four classes of dining room, three sittings at a meal. My girls and I were fortunate enough to be in the first class dining room in the second sitting. They'd give us like a little juice glass full of water maybe about three inches of water in it. It was all yours. You could have it if you wanted it, but if you didn't drink in all they wouldn't think of throwing it out. They'd bring it up to that level for the next person. [Ericksen laughs] And that was a little difficult for a bacteriologist to see, I can tell you. One of [laughs]...one of the...the lady who sat in my seat in the first sitting was one of the few rare birds that still had some lipstick and she always left a little ring on the glass. I didn't like the looks of it (they never washed in between). I didn't like the looks of it so I rubbed it off but the poor fellow sitting there next time wouldn't know what part had been used and what hadn't. But they never washed in between. We commonly referred to our food as our Lutheran diet. Of course, you recall that Martin Luther was tried by the Diet of Worm and the Diet was a court and Worms was a city. But ours wasn't. It was wormy rice and you could eat it or not. After all, that was the only fresh meat we had. But you know when you're really hungry, really hungry, you'll eat what's put before you. Enough.

ERICKSEN: So going back to the process of repatriation.

PHILIPS: I must add to that. I just thought after I stopped. We were on that ship for one month, you see. Why did it take so long? Well, of course, the seas are all mined during the war. And troop ships have mine sweepers but we didn't. We went from Shanghai down to Hong Kong across to San Fernando in the Philippines Islands, back and up the str...up the Mekong River to Saigon, down and through the straits by Java and over to Marmagao, a Portugese port on the west coast of India. We had to transship at a Portugese port. But with no mine sweeper we had to travel on untraveled routes and it was, well, it was a solid month. When we got there the American medical authorities said we were the largest group with the most emaciated looking Americans they'd ever seen. And they probably saw worse since but we were...we were a sight to behold. And then we got on to the...the Gripsholm. It...it wasn't there when we got there but the next day it came in around the rocks, docked in front of us. The Japanese sang their national anthem and then somebody on that ship began to sing God Bless America. We couldn't believe our ears. We'd never heard it before. It was a new song to us, but somebody was singing for us. Well, it seems when the ship was ready to start...to sail from New York they were short of crew and they sent out an abbeal...an appeal for boys not in any branch of the service to come out and help to bring us home in safety. And there was a little group of American boys plus the ship's crew singing for us. Now we were on a high ship...a high deck here. Our kids would crowd as far forward. You know they would. They always want to be where the action is. When the music died away they called to these fellows down there, "What you got to eat on your ship?" Oh, we heard a list of things we hadn't allowed ourselves to think about for a long time. You know, when you're a little hungry you talk about food. When you get more hungry you don't talk about it but you think about it. But when you get really hungry you don't let yourself think about it. It brings on those awful hunger pangs. And you know these folks made a horrible mistake. They said to our kids, "What do you want to eat?" [Ericksen laughs] They got the same flourish back...same letters...words back with a few flourishes added. And then those extravagant Americans began to throw fruit and try to get it up on the deck to us. Some of it did land on the deck but some of it went into the sea. It was awfully hard to see that wasted. Well, finally the...we stayed on that ship for three days while they stowed the Red Cross parcels in the hold of the ship. The previous exchange had taken place in Madagascar. When they got the Japanese on board, away they went they left all the Red Cross parcels there. We had never seen one. Of course, there's special food [pauses]...(what do I want to say?)...anyway very special food for nourishment and special clothing and things of that sort. But we didn't get anything of that sort. So we stayed until there were ho...stored in the hold of the ship. [clears throat] So the folks we had left behind would have Red Cross parcels. And then we came out of this port over this way. [clears throat] The Japanese came out over this way on account of you didn't see who you were exchanged for. It was just the total number. And when we got onto the ship we were on the low deck now and they were up here. The few Christians (remember the...the whole crowd was largely anything but Christian)...but the few Christians got together even though the Japanese were here and we were there. Together we sang "In Christ there is no east or west" and "Jesus shall reign where 'ere the sun that his successive journeys run." You know, there was a real fellowship even though we're enemies during the war, we're one in Christ. [clears throat] Then somebody up here [on another deck?] said, "When you get back to Washington, won't you see what you can do so the next group of Japanese can have their Bibles. There's not a Bible on this ship." And we couldn't understand why the Americans had taken them and they didn't know either. [pauses] Well, it seems when they...our Bibles, when we were to...coming out, our Bibles were inspected. Anything that had any marks in it was confiscated. Of course, you see you could send any sort of word by underline here and underline there. So all of our Bibles we'd (by the way, have you anybody...do you know any Bibles that you've study that don't have marks in them?)...and so all the Bibles that we'd been studying were taken. I happened to have a cheaper Revised Version that was...had my fla...lame...name halfway down the flyleaf and they tore that out and let me have it so I had the Bible. So the...when the Japanese were inspecting...Americans were inspecting Japanese Bibles somebody was quick enough to spot a Japanese code book that was passing for a Bible. Oh, who knows how many more there are? So they called in all the Japanese Bibles. The American Bible Society offered a new Japanese Bible for everyone on board but those in charge of propaganda said, "No, the Americans took our Bibles." And they didn't know why. We could have lost ours the same way. I went out one day on deck and here sat a missionary, quotation marks around her, who had a complete works of Shakespear around which she had put a Bible cover. If the Japanese had discovered that they wouldn't have known what it was. They'd have just known that it was not a Bible. And we could all have lost ours the same way. Really doesn't pay to kick over the traces, does it? So that was the...the main part of it. Oh yes, we traveled then our first...yeah, we set sail. Before we did that we got our first meal on the Gripsholm. And I had forgotten how white bre...how white white bread could be. I saw that and I thought, "Oh, surely they wouldn't be serving us angel food cake this early would they?" [clears throat] We'd had white bread in China when we were first interned. They asked us if we would like to have flour or rice and our folks chose flour. So we were able to have bread. They built their own big ovens and we had bread all the time. One day in Chefoo I saw a hand pulled cart loaded with bags of flour and the label was "Good Earth." We decided they'd put quite a bit of it in the flour. That's the reason the bread was as dark as it was. But we throughly enjoyed and had our diet carefully supervised and the government sent vitamin pills, all of those things for us. Then we set sail and I don't remember how far we went but we got our first mail in two years. It's something in catching up with folks at home when two years of war. But that was the first mail and we caught up a bit. And then our next port of call was Port Elizabeth in South Africa. We were allowed to go ashore a part of...parts of two days. We'd been fed now for two weeks. We looked better. People would say to us, "Are you off the ship?" They didn't need to ask us. We'd say, "Yes." "Well, we've been praying for you." What a bond there is in...among Christians even though they didn't know us or anything about us. Well, then our next port was, as I told you, Rio de Janeiro and then New York. As we were going up the Hudson River everybody was out peering into the fog for the Statue of Liberty. And somebody said, "Oh, we passed it during the night." We were disappointed but all of a sudden somebody said, "Statue of Liberty!" And everybody ran over to that side of the ship to see it. And we saw her standing there with her light to welcome us all. It was quite an experience. Well, now before this they had given us pages of questions to fill out and answer these questions so it would speed up our disembarking. And when we...after we got into the river here we'd see ferries and so on, all of them signaling to us, waving and calling welcome to us as we came up the river. And we docked, I think it was nine o'clock in the morning, and they started taking people off the boat. Of course, they were checking over our sets of questions. And I came down the line and they said, "Will you go back into that corridor for special questioning." I thought, "What in the world have I done to have special questioning?" There was a couple...dare I say? a couple of Puerto Rican's on board who had openly boasted that they'd been the leaders of a ring of pick pockets when they were in New York and they went off without anybody paying any attention to them and I was sent back for special questioning. I got back into this corridor and here were all our children all sent back for special questioning. If I'd been off the children would have been here alone. Well, the only question they wanted to ask the children was, "Why are you traveling without your parents?" Well, that was no problem. They could have asked that at anytime. But we were back there and the hours went by. I had one girl that was developing epilepsy, had these little petite mall seizures. And with all the pressure of that she had the worst one I had ever seen her have. I almost despaired of ever getting her out of it. If those children had been alone what would it have been? It was the Lord's mercy. Oh, the reason I was sent back for special questioning...maybe somebody asked me a question at the wrong time. I don't know. But I have failed to answer a question: "Have you ever been in ploy...in the employ of any other government?" Well, that's enough to put a curse on anybody, isn't it? [laughs] So I was sent back for special questioning, but that put me there when I was needed. And finally as everybody else got off, then they came and took us special questioning people and took us through. And I finally got off the ship with the last child at 7:30. That had been a long day. And we got over...oh yes, I should say this. I don't know if he'll ever hear it. But one of the men from another mission had asked could he do anything to help me. And I had said, "Well, if you wouldn't mind taking my girls, one another as they come off, and just keeping them as a unit till I get there. Well, then I got off with the last one and he had helped us all the way through. He had sent his wife and children on to a hotel room until then. Well, we got over to where our mission people were, talked for a moment and then somebody said, "By the way, your brother is over there." I had a brother who was a doctor in Massachusetts and he and his wife had been waiting there all day for us. And, of course, thinking I could go right home, but I couldn't. I had to take these children out to Philadelphia to headquarters. And we kept them together so I took them out and parked them and the next day went back. And then quick took a...a hurried flight, look over New York City to see what...what they wanted us to see and then we went up to Worcester, Massachusetts, to their home. And they kept me there for three months before I went on home. I really needed some building up. But that was our whole debarkation and then when I was finished there I was ready to go home. I...I did tell you about the two Phillips children, didn't I, with a double L?

ERICKSEN: That was before we were recording the first interview so maybe you could retell that.

PHILIPS: Oh, well there were among...among our children two Phillips children (two Ls in their name and mine has only one), so when the Japanese typed up the prison ship list my name would come first and they'd look down there and two children with two Ls, they'd roll the thing back in the typewriter, put another L in my name and donate me the two children. So they were mine all the way around the world. Now they stayed in Philadelphia while I was up in Massachusetts. When I was ready to go I told the mission I was ready and they said, "Well, the Phillips children's parents have come. They're at home in Portland, Oregon. Would you take them home?" So I was to take them home [laughs] and Kathryn came down with the mumps the day we were to leave, mumps again. But so it went. Well, finally I waited and visited elsewhere until she recovered and then took them on out home and they met their folks. But that was really what happened all the way. All of our children eventually got together with their parents. But they were kept as a unit at...in Philadelphia. They'd go out to various schools but they'd come back at night and be with others who'd been through the same strains that we had. And so it was. It was good for them. Anybody else wouldn't have understood it.

ERICKSEN: Sure.

PHILIPS: And I never had any dream of anything but going back to China. And I was trying to get ready and it took a long time to regain health. I'd build up a bit, then down again and so on. And finally I felt I was ready so I had to do something to prove that I wouldn't crack up under pressure. So I taught at the university [University of Washington] for a couple of years.

ERICKSEN: Of Washington?

PHILIPS: In Seattle. No pressure there, of course. And during that time the mission told me that in going back to China I might go to the tribes down in Yunnan west China.

ERICKSEN: Now this is CIM?

PHILIPS: That's right. And so I heard about a group teaching linguistics, the basic principles. Why that was Wycliffe, of course. So I studied with Wycliffe [Bible Translators] for China. Everybody knew I wasn't going to work with them. And everything was all set, the sailing date, and two weeks before the sailing date the China [claps hands] door closed. And that was a bitter pill. And the ene...

ERICKSEN: Now had you...? I'm sorry, go ahead. I'll...I'll pick it up.

PHILIPS: I was going to say the enemy [the devil] said, "You're finished now. What about this live you said you're going to spend in China? The Lord's through with you, put you on the shelf" and so on. I finally recognized the source of it and I said, "Well, Lord I thought it was China but what I've done is give myself to You. Now what do You want?" Now do you want to ask your question?

ERICKSEN: Forgotten what it is already.

PHILIPS: Oh. Well, anyway when I said, "Now what do You want?" He indicated Mexico and I thought, "Mexico. That's not much of a mission field. They're just our next door neighbors. But our next door neighbors are our mission field. Then I thought they all talk Spanish down there, don't they, but I don't know any Spanish. Of course, I might learn it. But you know when we went down to Mexico the government of Mexico told us they had fifty tribes of Indians with nothing in writing. That meant we'd have to do fifty New Testaments and we undertook it. Today we have something more than sixty-four New Testaments done in Mexico alone. We're in about a hundred twenty more languages and there're still twenty-five or thirty we haven't been able to get into. "What are you doing? Making up languages?" They were there all the time. The government just didn't know how many there were. But to get back, the first year I went on a purely loan basis with Wycliffe...

ERICKSEN: Okay.

PHILIPS: ...expecting that China would reopen. That was 1950 that I went with Wycliffe. It hasn't opened yet. Isn't it a good thing I didn't sit and twiddle my thumbs. It's so easy to just wait and sometimes...sometimes the Lord says "Wait" and sometimes He doesn't. So I've been with Wycliffe now since 1950.

ERICKSEN: Now what was your status with CIM during that interim period?

PHILIPS: That was the point they were getting their people out of the field...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

PHILIPS: ...off the field and deciding what to do next. Th....

ERICKSEN: Were you still a registered CIM member?

PHILIPS: I was still a CIM'er until that time.

ERICKSEN: Until 1950?

PHILIPS: '49. And '49 when I got the word it was too late to go back and take the second course of Wycliffe, so I filled in at another gap and something else and then went back and took the 1950 course and went onto the field.

ERICKSEN: How did the process of joining Wycliffe compare and contrast with joining CIM?

PHILIPS: Well, I think if I had been a beginner it would have been much the same. But they already knew me now. I'd worked with them for China. They already knew me and they...and I knew the background. I had to...I had to get the orientation angle same as elsewhere to know what Wycliffe did. But it was...well, as I wrote letters from Mexico, China friends wrote how much like Mexico...Mexico...how much like China Mexico sounds. And then I suddenly realized the rest were going through culture shock and it was much like just stepping right in to the same thing that we'd been before. But it was altogether different, too.

ERICKSEN: How long was the period of time that it took you to decide to go to Mexico with Wycliffe?

PHILIPS: It wasn't very long. I had...see, I'd had the first year of...of Wycliffe and was already to go and I couldn't get out to...go back to China and so I thought, "Well, this is something I can do for...for the interim." So we put that before...before Wycliffe, told them the whole setup and went down there for the first year. And then since during that time I just was assured that that's what the Lord wanted me to do and so I went into it full time.

ERICKSEN: Now were you with (what was it?) the Zapoteco Indians? Is that how you pronounce it?

PHILIPS: Zapoteco. Z-A-P-O-T-E-C-O.

ERICKSEN: Were you with them that first year?

PHILIPS: I was with...with another branch of them the first year in...in the little town of Mitla. And then the second year I went to another. Let's see, I filled another gap in another tribe for a little while. I think that's when I went to the Otame [sp?] Indians in Tasquillo and was there filling a gap. You see, they don't send one along. And then....

ERICKSEN: Since you were accompanying someone else...

PHILIPS: Yes.

ERICKSEN: ...is that right?

PHILIPS: I was accompanying someone who'd already started the work there. I was keeping her company and then I think just after that.... Sorry.

ERICKSEN: That's all right.

PHILIPS: The very next year I went right out to our own tribe among the Zapotecs.

ERICKSEN: And was there someone else with you then?

PHILIPS: Yes. There was another...we were both new at...at the tribe at that time.

ERICKSEN: And how was it decided that you would to work with that group of Indians?

PHILIPS: Well, I think [pauses]...I was floating and Inez was floating and they just put us together.

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

PHILIPS: So we didn't...they do more as a rule, seeking to find out just where and so on. But this happened to be...the people who had been there before had been put on headquarters staff and had to spend much time away from the tribe and he finally had said, "If you'll send somebody else to take on this tribe, I'll do it. If not I'll take no more of those jobs." And he has been used in...in an official position so often. And so they sent us out to fill there and then we were with them a little while. [laughs] This is suddenly [sic] a map of Mexico in case you don't see it [paper rustles as Philips pulls out map] but we got out to this village. We wanted to get here but we couldn't because this one and this one were at war. Instead of fighting this way they were fighting this way right around our house. So we stayed over here for three months teaching reading. We could trust what we were reading because these folks had translated it and had a primer. Well, it's written distinctly phonetically and as soon as we knew what those letters said we could pronounce it and we could teach reading. Well, finally the folks over hear came over and said, "Come on over. The war's over." So we moved over. The first night we were there an older women came to the door with a couple of young teenagers. She said, "I want you to teach us...teach these children to read." We offered her a book the same time we offered it to them. And she said, "I can't read. I've got a head like a donkey." What she meant was perfectly true. She'd had just a much schooling as that donkey. She would never take a book. She brought the children every night to read. She'd never take a book. She had done a work in...in the field, a day's work. The field was down the mountainside. And you know, when you come in and sit down after a day's work in the field what's likely to happen. She looked like she was asleep and when she snored we thought she was. She wasn't paying one bit of attention. The kids were reading along and all of a sudden she'd say, "Stop. You didn't say that word right." And she'd tell them the next word in the book. She'd never heard it, she'd never seen it. We felt that must be an awfully good translation for her to be able to supply that next word when they put in a wrong word. And that we thought was an encouragement because one day she would understand enough that she'd come to know the Lord and then she'd have an incentive to learn to read. We were away that summer. When we got back that fall we found out that she had died. We haven't any idea if she ever heard enough to come to know the Lord. We just don't know. But that's one of the things that makes us feel we must hurry. The time is short. So many of them are passing on.

ERICKSEN: Yeah.

PHILIPS: Well, now back to this warfare. [Philips apparently taps on map] This was stopped. One day about the second or third night we were there some folks from this village [taps map] hid around the corner of the house where we were living and shot down here. And the war was on again. They were notoriously poor shots. Almost nobody got hit. But you know you kid...could step in front of one of those bullets and stop it. So it was a pretty strenuous situation. But there are wars all around we don't know anything about here. Just fighting going on everywhere.

ERICKSEN: Can you tell me a little bit about the...the Indians?

PHILIPS: Yes. That Zapotec language I think was spoken by seventy to seventy-five thousand people and....

ERICKSEN: What part of Mexico is...is...was this in?

PHILIPS: Do you know...well, Oaxaca city is about three hundred miles or more south of Mexico City. And then we were seventy-five miles back in the mountains from there. I had a jeep. The first year we went by animal, and then I got the jeep. In dry weather, with the trails in the best possible condition, you might make that seventy-five miles in eight to ten hours. It has taken us three days. You see [laughs] there are not much roads and it's rugged going, but we were glad we could go that way instead of on a truck and animals and so on. But it was...it was rugged going but a priceless privilege to be there knowing that that's Lord wanted us. Well, some of them would come and they're very...very great drinkers and our landlord would drink. The market town was an hours walk across the mountain from us and he would go to market once a week (about every time market was open) and he'd generally come home (should I say three sheets to the wind?) Thoroughly inebriated, sometimes had to be let, led home. But why sure. That was perfectly alright. They saw nothing wrong with it. It was just their custom. So there was a lot of drinking. He had a grown daughter who was a seamstress. She sewed on a treadle Singer sewing machine that had been carried out to the mountains on human backs. But she...she did sew and actually she made me a Zapotec costume which was all embroidered and the top was to have, well, sort of orange colored and gold. Not exactly the colors we would choose. And I suggested that some blue and green and red, the colors.... She said, "Don't you want a Zapotec costume?" "Yes." So I had to let her put in those colors and then she put the other colors on the bottom of the skirt. But it had to be [laughs]...it had to be those colors. It didn't seem right to me, but that was a Zapotec costume. Well, she was...and then there was a grown son. I don't know what he did. He was not around very often. And the house that we lived in was to be his house. Well, we were there for [pauses] I guess the most of five years before there was any moving and then by this time I was sent home for home assignment and my partner was living with somebody else over in the other town, had another partner. But they were...they were a very friendly people. [laughs] They were very giving people. They would bring you gifts. Of course, you had to give...give them something of equal value. So it was quite interesting. We would send one of them over to buy our groceries, an hours walk across the mountains, and we would tell them that we wanted green bananas not black ones. Well, they liked them just so ripe that they were turning black. And they would bring them that way and we didn't like them that way so we'd make banana bread out of them. And they liked the banana bread so they kept bringing us that kind of bananas. And then we had a fruit that they called the sapote [sp?]. I don't suppose you're acquainted with it. It's relative of the persimmon but the outside of it when it's ripe is dark green and the inside is, well, we'd say black. You probably will know what it's like more when I tell you it's very, very sweet and you put a bit of orange with it or something like that to cut the sweet and give it some flavor. It's delicious but some of our men have called it the axle grease fruit. It looks like about the consistency and the color or axle grease but it's call the black sapote. Well, they brought us those and they brought us those, so we finally made sapote bread, the recipe of the black...of banana bread and they liked that. Well, then they had a...a melon. They call it chilicayote [sp?] that was...well, it...it looked like a squash, a cross between a squash and a watermelon without the good characteristics of each. And they would chop it up with a machete, put it into a big pot and boil it with brown sugar. And when you'd go calling they'd bring you a big bowl like that of that drink. And you had to take it for everybody you visited. It limited the number of calls you could make in one afternoon. But you would drink some of it until you got to the point you'd get a bit of shell that you could use for a spoon and label...ladle the rest of it out. And so we were limited in the number of calls we could take...make because you didn't dare refuse to drink it for this one if you had for that one. Well, they decided we liked it and they started bringing us pots of it and we didn't particularly enjoy it but you couldn't throw it away. And finally they decided to bring us the melons and let us cook our own. What a relief that was. We would chop it up and start sauteing with salt. It made a delicious vegetable. But when you have that vegetable two meals a day, day after day, even that gets monotonous. So finally I said to my partner, "We'll, have to can some of that." We couldn't face anymore of it. "Well, what will we do with it?" I said, "I don't know but they'll at least see we didn't waste it." So we had some little mason jars and we canned several pints of it and they could see that we had saved it. Well, I told you about our banana bread and our sapote bread. And now Christmas was approaching and we helped this town, forty minutes across the mountain, prepare a Christmas program. And they said they'd bring it over to our village. They had to get permission from the town president to do it, but it was going to be held there. And we knew... "Oh, there'll have to be refreshments." [pauses] And now we could go to the mou...to the markets in the city about once in six months. And we had to figure, "Now how many tins of this will we use and how many tins of that?" And as soon as we'd opened a tin they wanted it so rather than just give them...let them beg for things, we'd let them carry a load of water. And they'd carry a load of water in...and we'd give them a tin. I told you we had running water. Well that's the way it ran. But we...we would let them have tins for that and finally as we saw Christmas coming, no Styrofoam cups. In fact, I think we had a total of five but you couldn't serve a hundred that way. So we quit letting them have tin cans and they thought we were awfully selfish. They couldn't understand why. Native coffee is grown there and roasted and ground with brown sugar so it's a heavy syrupy mixture. Well, we'd have to serve them coffee and something else. So we made them coffee and put it those tins. And each one had a tin of coffee and had the tin as a souvenir. But we had to have something to serve with it. What could we do? Well, we took that squash we had canned and used that as the base to the receipt for banana bread and made them great big spice cookies. Oh, they enjoyed those and they didn't dream that they were eating their own squash. But [laughs] you'd sort of fit things together anyway. But it was...they...they had nearly a hundred there. And it was quite a job but they had a good time with it.

ERICKSEN: Now what kind of Christmas celebration would they have? Did they have any...what was their religious background?

PHILIPS: They...in...in...they were nominally Catholic but they didn't know what they believed and they would indicate that. But you...you could believe anything, you know, and just say you were Catholic.

ERICKSEN: So they had Christmas traditions?

PHILIPS: Oh, they had Christmas tradition and one thing.... Of course, much of their music was in a minor key. But they had a song, I don't know what it was, but anyway people would go to the inn, what was any home, that was supposed to be the inn, and ask for a place to stay. And then they would sing there was no room in the inn. I don't remember how it went now but would hear that in a minor key, "There's no room, no room." And so they would go all...what they would do when they were celebrating that, they'd would go up the hill singing at this house and they'd say "No room," and then they'd drink themselves drunk and then go on to the next house and that would go on the whole time. So it was good when they had a...a church Christmas program and it gave them something of an idea, some of the things that they didn't know at all. But [pauses]...well now, let me change the subject a bit. People in this country say, "Well, all our Indians talk English," which they don't. I was up in Canada a couple years ago and we went out...a few years ago, we went out a few miles west of Calgary to the Stoney [sp?] Indians. Now the translator wasn't there but his two Stoney Indian helpers were. And this friend took me out and we sat and talked with them for a couple of hours in English, no problem at all. But when Lillian had helped with the translation of the story of the resurrection, she'd read it many times in English but she translated into her language and read it back and she said, "Oh, is He alive?" She knew she read that they'd put Him in the tomb but she had never taken in the fact that the Lord came out of the tomb until she read it back in her own language after she'd put it in there, translated it. But that's the way so many of our people don't understand English. Well, now suppose...did you study any French in school?

ERICKSEN: No.

PHILIPS: No.

ERICKSEN: No.

PHILIPS: What language did you study?

ERICKSEN: German.

PHILIPS: German. Alright. Well, suppose I came and gave you a Gospel. Have you kept up on your German?

ERICKSEN: No.

PHILIPS: Well, if I came and gave you a gospel message in German you wouldn't get much would you?

ERICKSEN: No.

PHILIPS: Well, that's just it. If we're going to get anything out of it we've got to keep it up. And they simply...they say yes to things and they don't understand it at all. And there are so many cases we've have of that but that one particularly interested me. "Is He alive?" My how we need to know those things to be true.

ERICKSEN: What was the belief system of the Indians like? You said they free to believe just about anything. What did they believe?

PHILIPS: They believed it was very nice to drink poke [sp?] and get [laughs] deadly drunk. I don't know what they believed. Of course, they believed the Virgin of Guadalupe, because that's the...the patron saint of...of Mexico, but then they have various saints. When...well, to go back into Mexican history. We'll come back to this in a minute. When the...the Spaniards came in to the little town of Mitla, the town of...town of "souls," when they came to that little town they had beautiful temples on the hillside. They ruined those temples and right down in the center of the town they built a little wooden church and demanded that the Indians worship there. They never had and they wouldn't. The Spaniards were not going to be defeated. They finally tore that down and built it on top of the ruins up here. Wasn't it nice of those Spaniards to build us a church? They went in it and worshiped and now all their gods had saints' names. Saint so-and-so and saint so-and-so and saint so-and-so. They still worshiped the sun god, the wind god, the in...[pauses]...what I want to say? the...the rain god and the wind god is what I'm trying to get out. All these various ones. They worshiped them but they were saint so-and-so. And certain gods...saints that were responsible for animals. There was one they...all the animals that had white on their, well, take Holstein cattle for instance...pictures painted on...in the white spots. That was supposed to call the...the attention, I think it was Saint Jeronimo [Spanish for Saint Jerome], I'm not sure, that was supposed to take interest in those animals and pre...protect them for the year. It was just a hodgepodge so I can't tell you what they believed. They had...they had one place over here was the cave where the sun sleeps and the sun would sleep there at the night theoretically. But they had their various witchcraft things in there. They never showed it to foreigners but they did to one and some had seen it and knew a little bit about it. But the cave were the sun sleeps and a place of worship, spirit worship...as...as I said, it was just a hodgepodge of these things.

ERICKSEN: Were they...were they animists?

PHILIPS: No, I don't...I don't know of any of them who were animists. In some places they are but in this particular area I don't know of any that were.

ERICKSEN: What about...did they have any concept of eternal life, life after death?

PHILIPS: Again I'll say a hodgepodge. Something of it but there was no...no logic to it. By the way have you read the...Don Richardson book Eternity in Their Hearts? If not you should.

ERICKSEN: I've read Peace Child. I don't know if I've read the second one.

PHILIPS: Well, he...he goes back...Peace Child is quite...Peach Child and then Lords of the Earth and then Eternity in Their Hearts.

ERICKSEN: No, I haven't.

PHILIPS: And I understand he has still another one. But Eternity in Their Hearts, he has been researching various countries. Anthropologists who are researching now instead of just saying as they used to do, "Oh, you go to these people and you just ruin all their beautiful culture," backing evolution, of course. Now they're finding, evolutionists...anthropologists are finding as they go further back into the culture, like Paul said, "Everybody has had light." [paraphrase of Romans 1:20] And you'll find in every place when you go far enough back they all have the tradition of Noah and the flood. Well, of course they said. They're all descendants of Noah, aren't they? But in some of the places you find...and as he started in that book he started with the Asian groups and he spoke of (at the moment I can't tell you the names of them) characters known from history who used to teach them about the sky god and so on. And then he came clear over here to Ecuador and named characters again that we know from history whose name I have missed at the present time. But he was able to teach his people about the sky god and so on and many of those tribes will say, "Yes, our ancestors new him. They had a book that told about him, but they were careless. Some of them, well they...they...they were careless and the book got torn up, or maybe the dogs ate it or it got into the fire or something and now we're hunting for that book." It isn't any wonder then when they begin to get the truth, if they'd been one of that group, they...they recognized that this is really the...what they call the sky god and it fits in and you find a hunger. We found such a reception among the Quichua Indians in...in Ecuador and some of the others. Now I'm talking about areas that I don't really know....